


there before the threshold

by tidelinear



Category: Runaways (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, F/F, Kind of a character study, near-apocalypse despair that might read as suicidal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22540009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tidelinear/pseuds/tidelinear
Summary: At the end of the world, Nico and Karolina find their way back to each other.
Relationships: Karolina Dean/Nico Minoru, Nico Minoru & Chase Stein
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42





	there before the threshold

When it came to light that a monster had risen out of the sea, gnashing teeth and bone-piercing shriek, Nico had thought, very simply, _oh fuck_. She doesn’t remember getting home, but she has a hazy understanding of seeing her parents in the living room, on a conference call. She’d assumed it was for work, that they hadn’t had time to check their phones, violently vibrating. But within the month, the Minorus and their family friends moved inland, and another slavering beast rose in San Diego, making its way further inland than Trespasser had ever managed. 

Nico looked over at Chase and found in his eyes the same stomach-churning suspicion. Later, the very first rangers sat on TV explaining neural connections and Jaegers and drift compatibility and six children pretending they were lounging, not huddling, in the dry desert of Joshua Tree, ridiculed big fancy scientists who were relying on _the power of love_ to take down the biggest threat humanity had ever faced.

When it came to light that their parents were sacrificing children — ritualistically bleeding and murdering children, children their age, children they hadn’t known about, children right under the rooms they slept in — to the monsters, trying to broker some kind of deal with them, that they were the reason the kaiju were finding their way to inland California, Nico had thought, _we need to run._

They had taken Chase’s van and escaped in the middle of the night, right back to Los Angeles, at the behest of Alex, always the strategist. And they had argued there, outside the massive gates of the Los Angeles LOCCENT, six children and a cat that had followed Molly back to their van. Nico had thought they were going to the source of the madness pervading the world, the government-funded cult which clung to the idea that love could power giant mechas dropped into the roiling Pacific, humanity’s last stand against the blight, just because they’d gotten lucky _once_.

Years later, standing in an airport with her worldly possessions in two duffle bags, Nico can admit that maybe, when she was sixteen and callous, she hadn’t known shit. 

Love had her standing behind Alex as he begged the Los Angeles LOCCENT director to let them join, give them a chance; love led to Gert and Chase passing a compatibility test with flying colours, to Nico and Alex failing the same test until LOCCENT suggested she try with Karolina. Love led to grueling training, hundreds of simulations of a Jaeger drop, reaching a 93% drift with Karolina and never further, a hole in the side of the LA Shatterdome, and unbearable, all-encompassing pity in the aftermath. 

Love meant watching Karolina leave for Siberia, love swept Chase and Gert to Hong Kong; love led to Alex betraying what he had built, love kept Molly safe at her grandmother’s house and love took Nico’s family from her a second time.

Nico closes her eyes against the sudden way the airport spins around her and tries to remember if she’s had enough water today. She’s still trying to divide sixty-four by the eighteen ounces her water bottle holds when her phone rings. 

International area code, she notes, heart in her throat. “This is Nico,” she says.

“Hey, it’s Chase.” He sounds tired. “I found a hospital that’d be willing to take Gert in.”

Nico exhales. “That’s great news,” she says and neither of them mention how much money he would have had to promise to make that happen. “I’ll pay for half of it.” She talks over his protests. “She’s my friend, Chase, of course I will.”

Chase is silent. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I was under the impression that we were all losing our jobs.”

“Sure, but I’m not exactly saving for old age.”

“The Wall — ” Nico can’t help the scoff and Chase cuts himself off, huffing static into the phone. “So that’s it, huh? You’re just giving up.”

“Chase,” Nico says, quiet. 

“No, I get it. I get it. Big fuck-off monsters rising from the depths, obviously you have to recalibrate priorities. Obviously getting Old Lace upright again is dumb as shit.” Nico stares blankly for a minute until she realizes he means Horizon Basilisk. She’d forgotten their nickname for the Jaeger. 

“Obviously the Wall probably won’t do shit,” Chase continues. A ragged intake of breath. "I just — Nico, I wanna live."

Nico’s heart seizes in her chest. “Yeah,” she whispers.

The other end of the line goes completely silent, and Nico debates muting her side too, give them both a chance to clear their throats, whisk away all signs of tears. “I’m glad you’re coming to visit,” Chase says abruptly and Nico freezes, then pushes a duffle bag behind a bench, like he’s here to watch her do it. “You’re in an airport,” Chase says into the silence. “You are, aren’t you? I can hear airport-y shit.”

Nico swallows. “I am. But I’m going to go to uh. Novosibirsk.”

Nico is going to stare at the board of flights departing for Eastern Europe and not buy a ticket, like she did last week, and the week before. She’s started leaving her car in the parking lot right outside LAX, the one technically reserved for drop-offs. She won’t be here long.

Chase is quiet for a while. “Novosibirsk. Siberia?”

“I just — I wanted. I don’t know. The Jaeger program is ending. The world is ending. I don’t want to leave on bad terms with — people.”

“That makes sense,” Chase says. “Gert really wanted you to do this.”

“Yes,” Nico says. That’s the point, she doesn’t say, but Chase hears it.

“You don’t think Gert will wake up.” Nico closes her eyes to the din of the airport. “You’re trying to honour her memory.”

“I’m sorry,” Nico whispers.

“She isn’t _dead_ ,” Chase says. His voice is horrible, bleak.

“She isn’t,” Nico agrees desperately. “I’m just — where else do I go? I don’t have a job. I don’t talk to anyone." 

“You can talk to your family,” he offers quietly. It takes Nico a shameful second to realize he doesn’t mean her parents, hidden somewhere in Iowa, getting away with everything. “You can — I could always use a hand. If you’re interested.”

Nico sees it then, a way out of the valley of numbness she’s been in. A path forward to a mountain’s peak, and finally forgetting herself and her troubles.

“And add me to your contacts, asshole,” Chase says, louder to smooth over the emotion. She loves him for it. “‘This is Nico’, I’ve gotten more personal greetings from the hospital admins I’ve been calling for the past three weeks.” 

Nico buys a ticket.

* * *

The flight from LA to Hong Kong is seventeen hours long and Nico spends most of it trying not to think, and failing. 

If Nico and Karolina had been able to complete their drift, they would have flown out with their own Jaeger with Gert and Chase in Old Lace to defend Hong Kong’s coast while the city sunk every resource into developing the next generation of Jaegers.

If Nico and Karolina had been able to complete their drift, Karolina wouldn’t have fucked off to Siberia with the first person she was kind of drift compatible with and Nico wouldn’t have been demoted to J-tech and they wouldn’t have had to stand in the safety of their respective Shatterdomes, when Levac rose, the first Category II the world had seen, the first to necessitate categories at all. 

Drone footage showed Levac ripping Old Lace almost in half. The right side, Gert’s side, had fallen forward, kneeling to the kaiju in an obscene parody of worship. The PPDC deployed its air force, and Basilisk dragged itself to shore, left hand clutching the torn-out remnants of the right side’s cockpit, Gert’s pilot-shape cradled inside gently, sprawled out as though in sleep, the most ill-timed nap in the world.

She didn’t wake up. 

And now, with the PPDC shutting down the Shatterdomes, Gert sleeps in another hospital, Chase keeping silent vigil at her side. Nico will too. She supposes that’s all that’s left to do.

* * *

Chase isn’t at the airport to pick her up. She doesn’t realize she was expecting him to be until she’s bumped into by three separate people rushing quickly towards to the pick-up area, then feels abruptly stupid. A cab takes her to the Hong Kong Shatterdome, where Chase also isn’t, a harried J-tech tells her. Don’t bother the people who still have jobs, Nico tells herself, and shows herself to a room in the rangers’ quarters. It’s not like there are rangers anymore who need the space. She’s pretty sure Chase is the last one standing, and Karolina — 

The path from the Shatterdome to the hospital is a straight line. She forgoes the cab and sets out, jostled on all sides until she falls into the locals' stride, and then she’s ignored, blending easily into the commuters, bustling even as the world ends. It’s not much different than the last time she visited, for the opening of this Shatterdome. At every other corner, vendors hawk their wares: street food and fertility potions made of kaiju liver, protection charms and magazines. It kind of makes her think about how the prevailing instinct is just to go on, how resilient the human spirit is. 

Or maybe this is all just a refusal to acknowledge certain doom. 

The street food should smell amazing, but she has less than no appetite and ducks her chin into her windbreaker, focusing on her shoes so she can’t think too much about how grey and hazy the world has been since she got off the plane, one foot in front of the other. She wishes she had her headphones, then abruptly feels awful. The world is ending and all she wants is to shut it out. 

She finds her way to the correct floor of the hospital through a combination of hand signals and a receptionist whose English is better than the disjointed Chinese another ranger had taught her, once upon a time. She follows someone up to a waiting room, is pretty sure she nods when they indicate someone will be along shortly to show Nico into Gert’s room. The whole hospital feels isolated somehow, though she can hear voices in the waiting room and see the bustle of doctors and nurses. Maybe it’s her head, maybe no one else can feel this grey, hazy mess. 

“You look tired,” the man sitting next to her in the waiting room tells her.

Sometimes it feels like Nico is only moving between the peak of one disaster to the next. There is only the cliff’s edge of fear and panic, then the desperate hurdle between mountains, avoiding at all costs the yawning pit in the middle. 

She’s in the middle now, free-falling into the depths she’s only glimpsed before. She’s not tired. She’s fucking terrified.

“Nico,” says a voice, sharply, like it was said at least once before.

Chase’s hair is so much longer than when she last saw him. He has honest-to-god wrinkles developing. But we’re so young, she thinks with shock. Maybe it’s because she’s noticing the fine lines around his eyes that she can’t understand the expression on his face. She stands, but he doesn’t hug her, only comes closer, puts his hands on Nico’s shoulders.

“Gert’s awake,” he says. The words don’t make sense in her head for a few long molasses-slow seconds. She runs the sentence through her head, then again when the words don’t line up. “She’s — she woke up. She’s awake. We’re going to plug the breach.”

Nico sits, hard. 

“Jesus, Nico.” Chase’s hands land on her shoulders again and it’s not til she realizes how far up she has to look to see him that she realizes she’s sitting hard on the ground. He says something after that too, but Nico can’t hear it, can’t make sense of it, only sees that his mouth is moving.

The world really does go grey, then.

* * *

“Well, you did spring it on her a little.” 

Nico wants to curl towards the voice, something warm and loved about it even though it sounds like it hurts the speaker to talk. 

“Can you blame me,” comes Chase’s voice, softer than she’s heard it in a long time. 

“A little, sure,” is the reply and Nico opens her eyes at last, blinking until the popcorn ceiling comes into focus. She stretches, and becomes quickly and painfully aware of a massive crick in her neck. 

She’s not in a bed, which isn’t unusual in and of itself. Nico’s fallen asleep in all kinds of places and positions trying to keep herself going after pulling a full shift and an all-nighter at the LA Shatterdome, at least two other J-techs draped over whatever horizontal surface had the fewest coffee mugs and charging electronics on it.

“There’s something ironic about waiting for Nico to wake up,” Chase says and the answering laugh —

Nico nearly falls out of her chair trying to sight it and sees Gert, her Gert, tired and pale and awake, awake, Gert’s eyes are green, she’d forgotten, how could she have forgotten —

“Hey,” Nico croaks. “Gert, hey.”

Green eyes go glassy with tears and suddenly they’re all crying, reaching for each other through IV tubes and scratchy hospital sheets.

“Ma’am, I’m going to need you to step away just briefly while I make sure you’re okay.” Nico cranes her head over Gert’s shoulder to see a nurse standing patiently at the end of the room.

“She’s fine,” Chase mumbles. “Overwhelmed.”

“Jet lag,” Nico agrees.

“Nevertheless,” the nurse says, and Nico submits to a check-up, clutching Gert’s hand all the while.

He’s asking her to follow a painfully bright flashlight up towards the ceiling when Nico remembers, and snaps her head back towards Chase.

“What do you mean, plug the breach,” Nico says incredulously.

Chase and Gert make identically caught expressions, and Nico turns back to the nurse with her teeth bared in an approximation of a smile. The nurse doesn’t spare them a blink, and they sit in silence while he finishes his exam and declares her okay to continue.

It’s quiet until the nurse leaves, and then after that, until Nico finally gets fed up and says, “well?”

“Well what,” Chase says, the asshole.

“You can’t just drop ‘we’re plugging up the breach’, and act like that’s a _plan_.”

“It is a plan and it’s what we’re doing,” Gert says. “I didn’t — when I woke up and they told me how long I’d been asleep, I thought it must be over by now. But it’s not, Nico.”

She falls silent, leaning into Chase’s hand on her shoulder. 

“But we’ve tried this,” Nico says, as gentle as she can manage.

“We’ve never blasted it with that level of heat and energy of a 2400 pound thermonuclear bomb,” Chase says bluntly. “That’s the last shot we have and we can’t not take it. Gert and I will go down there once she’s ready and we can find — someone to drift with you. For back-up, just in case.” 

“Not Karolina. Don’t — do not bother her, okay? She’s been through enough shit already."

Chase exchanges a look with Gert that she doesn’t quite trust. He inclines his head in the barest shadow of a nod.

It’s a stupid plan. Objectively, it’s the dumbest, least thought-through thing Nico’s ever heard in her life. But the words feel like a parachute deploying, yanking her upward hundreds of feet, and the summit of the mountain comes into her line of sight, keeping her from the unknowable dark below. 

“Let’s fucking do it,” she says, and watches relief break over her friends’ faces.

* * *

 _It_ involves dropping right back into the rigorous training required of all rangers. Nico finds she’s missed it. 

Not the early mornings, those suck ass and there is truly no reason she can’t give up her two hours of of free time in the evening each in exchange for sleeping in; she’s rising before the sun, it is untenable — but the punishing routine, the simultaneous mental and physical requirements. She looks at Chase and knows he wouldn’t agree, though it’s much easier for him than it is for Gert, who is so much stronger now but who is still not quite ready for much more than a brisk jog. Not even Old Lace is prepared; the few remaining engineers still employed by the PPDC are still working to get her battle-ready. 

But there’s a plan. It might not work. It probably won’t work. But at least there’s something she can do, at least she’ll die knowing she did everything she could do. 

She breathes and watches the morning fog roll into Hong Kong’s main port.

When Nico had been a kid — a younger kid, it turned out 18 wasn't old at all — she'd thought all her favourite horror movies had secretly been shot on location in San Francisco. it was the only place she'd ever seen with fog so thick it obscured anything further than half a block away and all that you could see was the eerie shadows of telephone poles and the insistent beams of headlights waiting at a stop sign. Nothing so lent itself to belief in the supernatural as early mornings in the city, shadowy figures resolving themselves into commuters with their heads down.

It had been a beautiful city, Nico remembers, even if its mornings were too cold and foggy for her LA heart. But when the sun shone in San Francisco, the endless blue of the Pacific gleamed in answer like nowhere else on the coast. Nowhere else in the world, she corrects herself, and sets off down the hall.

She turns a corner and runs into PPDC-green scrubs. The figure becomes Victor Mancha when he turns around, rubbing his shoulder.

He was one of Gert’s regular nurses before they had to move her. Nico thinks it’s sweet that he’s become Gert’s unofficial nurse even as his colleagues pack up the PPDC hospital. She wishes it would comfort Chase to know he’s looking after her during rehab, he’s the most terse he ever is when Victor accompanies Gert to and from her mandated exercises. It makes sense, of course. A lot depends on Gert following her recovery timeline, as Chase and Gert are the only drift compatible rangers they have.

Nico and Chase had tossed around the idea of meditating themselves into people that didn’t bring any emotional baggage into the drift and just as quickly tossed it out. It doesn’t work like that, or at least it doesn’t for them. 

“Sorry,” Victor says, “did you also want a Twix?”

“Nah,” Nico says, then thinks about it. “Yeah, actually, hang on.” She kicks the vending machine like she would the one in LA’s LOCCENT. Two Mars bars fall out and she shrugs at Victor. Close enough.

“Showers’ll be down for another half hour,” Victor informs her, and makes a sympathetic noise when Nico groans. 

“I was just gonna camp out by the snacks while everyone’s off doing their own thing. Care to join?”

“Is that why it’s so quiet today,” Nico says, sliding down next to him on the ground beside the vending machines.

“The entire facility’s shutting down, Gert’s still asleep, Molly’s scrounging up breakfast — still don’t know if she’s called her grandma to let her know where she is, by the way — Chase is out of town and that’s pretty much everyone I hang out with here.”

It feels like the world comes to a screeching halt. Victor must see some of that in her expression because he pauses in the middle of a bite and hovers a hand over her shoulder like he’s not sure he’s allowed to touch her.

“Chase left?” Nico manages. 

“Yeah, for — I don’t actually know where, honestly, he doesn’t tell me much, guy doesn’t like me."

“He what?”

“He doesn’t like me,” Victor repeats faithfully, then winces. “I mean — did you mean? He’s out of town, is what I mean. You didn’t know he’s out of town?” The expression on Nico’s face must explain it all. “Well, it’s only a day trip. Pretty sure he’s back late this evening.”

Now that Nico is thinking about it, she’s pretty sure Chase did mention something about some errands to run, but in her defence, he’d mentioned them in the middle of training last night and she’d been focusing on not getting hit.

Still, a note wouldn’t have killed the guy. 

“I’m sure he likes you fine,” Nico says, although she realizes with a guilty tingle in her spine, that might be why Chase is so irritable when Gert is at rehab. 

Victor hums politely. “Well, I’ve never asked.”

“You’ve never asked Chase why he doesn’t like you?” 

“No, my God,” Victor replies, scandalized. “What would I do if he told me?” Nico laughs, and toasts him with the remaining half of her Mars bar. “Ready for tomorrow?” Victor says. 

“Absolutely,” she says, and tries not to make it sound grim.

They fall into silence, broken only by the rustling of candy wrappers. She hadn’t quite noticed that Chase had been gone. That was the thing about climbing the mountain — sometimes you were so focused on the summit that you lost track of others.

“You guys reek, lowkey,” a voice says, and Nico nearly tips over into Victor’s lap at the shock.

“ _Molly_ ,” Nico says. “Stop sneaking up on people.”

“Water’s gone for another twenty minutes,” Victor protests at the same time.

“Surprise,” Molly sings quietly. She sits down beside Nico, and barely pauses for a breath before continuing, “Chase’ll be back this evening, right? He was so vague about where he was going. But he’ll be back for the compatibility test tomorrow, don’t worry about that!” Nico chews on her lip. He’d definitely mentioned it then. Molly continues on, oblivious. “I know I haven’t been around the Shatterdome too much — ”

“Because we wanted to keep you safe at your grandma’s,” Nico can’t help interject.

“Right, but I hopped on a plane and came to visit my family because Gert woke up from a coma and nobody thought to tell me for _a month_ ,” Molly continues, cheerfully acerbic. She’s very good at that now, Nico thinks with a wince. “Anyway. I hope your new drift partner is someone I’ve met before. You’re gonna do great.”

“Thanks,” Nico mumbles. She feels mostly prepared. It’ll probably go okay.

* * *

Nothing is working. 

Nico jabs the fourth point at her partner in frustration, probably too hard but again, frustrated. It’s the third fight she’s won, the fourth fight overall — a woman built like an Amazon had flattened her without breaking a sweat — and she’s feeling the room grow increasingly tense.

Chase sighs audibly and Nico throws her staff to the ground. “Well, why don’t you show us how it’s done then,” she hisses. Chase looks at Gert, who looks back. 

“That might be a nice break,” Victor says, reaching for upbeat and only hitting awkward. Out of the corner of her eye, Molly gives him a thumbs up anyway. 

Their steps weren’t in sync, Nico will realize later. They hadn’t looked at each other in unison, but one after the other. She’s spent her entire career around Jaeger pilots and they get eerie to be around after a while, one-sided conversations, laughing at jokes no one else had said or heard, draped all over each other, uncomfortably intimate.

They approach the mat like strangers, and Chase scores three points to Gert’s one. 

“Um,” Molly says. 

“Gert,” Victor murmurs, and he’s off after her. Chase breaks his stick, and Nico turns on her heel, leaves.

She doesn’t feel much better for being in her room, but it’s quiet and there are no eyes on her. she guides herself onto the cot carefully, wincing when her head hits the pillow too hard. It can’t be cramps this early in the month. It might be a fever. She has not-quite chills, it feels like something gnawing at her, like her skin is too raw for the low-count PPCD-issue sheets. She sits back up, curling in on herself as best she can while she wrestles with the panic. She shakes out her purse and all that falls out are a few tampons, crumpled up post-its, her wallet, and some Advil, which is usually all she needs when she gets upset, except the gnawing sensation is new. A few pens fall out after a final half-hearted shake and Nico notices with a frown that they’re almost out of ink. 

It’s not like she has time now to sketch anything, much less design clothing like she used to, but there was a time when her fingers would always have some ink splotches. She wasn’t much of an artist; backgrounds, landscapes always eluded her, probably because she didn’t much care. But she loved silhouettes, shadows, lines and curls and how to frame a collar so it sat flat, how to flatter this skin tone and set off that eye colour, dramatic sweeping sleeves, wings. 

Karolina had made a game of it, she’d take Nico’s hands in hers, palms up, and study the Rorschach test on Nico’s hands, the smudges on the sides of her pinkies, and read her future with the ink stains she’d rubbed onto herself after figuring out a silhouette that had been bothering her.

When Karolina was upset, Nico would draw on her palms: Rufus the cat with stars in his fur, Chase’s fistigons, Molly lifting up the LA Shatterdome with one arm, flexing with the other. Karolina had liked tracing a finger over Nico’s lifeline, murmuring about how she wished she’d learned how to draw, before. 

Nico had offered to teach her, many times, but Karolina always demurred. Nico got the feeling she preferred to watch Nico sketch. She really should’ve gotten a clue sooner.

For a while, after Xavin, Nico drew only in kaiju blue. 

The doorknob turns almost simultaneously with the knock on her door and Nico says without looking up, “Hey, Molls.”

“Hi,” Molly says. “Uh, listen. Chase and I wanted to do this big reveal where Chase’d be, oh but there’s one more candidate, and Karolina would step out but—”

“Karolina,” Nico repeats, reverent, choking on the word.

“Yeah, but uh, I don’t know where she went. And Chase and Gert are — “ Molly falls silent.

“Molly, hey,” Nico says, catching her by the shoulders. “Hey. Let’s let everybody take a second to be by themselves, okay? Remember how we had that talk once, that sometimes people are going to be okay but only after they take a minute for themselves?”

Molly sniffs, looking younger than she is, which is very young. “I remember,” she says quietly. Nico draws her into a hug, marvels at how tall she’s grown that she has to bend her neck to rest her head on Nico’s shoulder. “Did you like how I pretended I didn’t know where Chase had gone?”

“Super sneaky,” Nico whispers. “Listen, you grab some blankets and climb up to Old Lace, okay? I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“I love Old Lace,” Molly says and keeps her head on Nico’s shoulder for a moment. Nico lets her, unbearably fond.

Nico’s almost out the door when Molly says, small and young, “Gert and Chase are going to be alright, right?” 

“Course,” Nico lies easily. “Gert was in a coma for years. It was insane to ask her to step into the Kwoon this early into physical rehab.”

Molly manages a small smile. “Yeah, they probably pushed themselves too hard, too fast. You didn’t help,” she adds pointedly and Nico winces, lets the hit land, because Molly’s right. “Let Karolina know we’re sorry if we pushed her too hard too fast, too.”

“I will,” Nico promises.

* * *

The path up to the official viewing gallery is clear-cut and carefully marked. The path up to a viewing gallery that Karolina and Nico scoped out when they were new to LOCCENT and absolutely confident in their future as Jaeger pilots, is a nearly vertical climb and several safety violations. But it’s the best place to look at the Jaegers, and it’s where Karolina is. Probably. Nico can’t claim to be in Karolina’s head anymore. 

The first she sees of Karolina, after years of separation and indirect updates through Molly, is the drape of her arms over a railing, slouched with her forehead almost resting against the top bar. She’s watching Solar Thrall, drinking in the sight. Nico knows pilots get attached to their Jaegers, knows Solar Thrall was never piloted after Xavin and Karolina’s final ride in Siberia.

“Hey,” she offers quietly, and Karolina immediately bonks her head on the beam. 

“Sorry!” Nico yelps, nearly drops the boxes she begged off the kitchen staff. “Sorry, I thought I made enough noise on the way up —”

“Ow, I did —” Karolina glares a little at the railing. “I did hear you, I just. I thought it’d be —”

“Someone else,” Nico finishes. Do you want to see me, Nico thinks. I missed you so much. Karolina’s inability to make eye contact answers the question well enough. “I brought lunch,” she says briskly. “Molly mentioned it was her idea to bring you out and I know she gets excitable. I wasn’t sure you’d had a chance to eat.” She wishes Molly was here now. She’d known where Karolina was here, why didn’t she send Molly in her stead? Sparks fly from a bare inductor, thirty feet away, and Nico and Karolina duck instinctively.

That’s why.

“I haven’t, I’ve been too — I haven’t. Thanks.”

“Picnic?” Nico asks, too loud. Karolina only smiles, reaches for the bag of food in a way that ensures no part of her hand touches Nico. Maybe Nico should have dug out her mesh gloves before finding Karolina, Karolina had always liked the texture of her clothing. Maybe Nico should be less desperate for Karolina to touch her again.

Nico sits below the railing, legs dangling over the sides. “Chase — took point in repairing a lot of Solar Thrall. He’s pretty pleased with the end result. If you want specs, he’s the best person to ask.”

“I’m just so happy to see her whole again,” Karolina says quietly. She drops down to sit next to Nico and Nico gets a whiff of something faintly flowery. She couldn’t begin to identify it, but it smells nice. Soothing, like the relief of a cool hand on a fevered forehead. Karolina would know, even if she wasn’t the one wearing it, she was always better at things like that.

“Um,” Karolina says, with a half laugh and a quick swipe of her hand to her eye that Nico immediately pretends to not have seen. It’s the least she can do for Karolina.

“It’s good to see you,” Nico murmurs.

Karolina smiles at that, faint but there. “You too. I — really missed you.”

“I really missed you,” Nico returns. Karolina looks like she’s going to reach out again, maybe like she’s going to hold Nico’s hand, but she ends up pointing weakly at the food in Nico’s hand. She’d wanted Nico’s hand. Nico’s bone-certain of it. 

They had been warned, before they were ever allowed in a Jaeger together, for the first and only time, back when they still believed they were it for each other for the rest of their very short lives, that the bond between pilots in the drift would always pull on your mind, no matter how far apart you are, especially the further apart you are. Nico had heard it just like the other pilots but she had never really understood it before she drifted, despaired at it after, their first and only chance, blown. 

After she and Karolina had blown a hole in LA LOCCENT, PPDC had instituted mandatory couples therapy for every pair prior to their first entry into a Jaeger. That was Nico’s legacy.

If Karolina tilts her head, she’d look exactly like she did when Nico was young and dumb and ruining the best relationship she ever had, and it has Nico reeling.

Karolina’s expression edges from sheepish to the beginnings of genuine concern. “Nico?” she says, and Nico jerks, nearly throws a sandwich box at her.

They eat in silence. Nico doesn’t dare look over, only watches engineers scurry over Solar Thrall’s body, ants on their hill.

“Thanks for the food,” Karolina says, and Nico startles but manages a smile. “Shall we?”

Nico stares at her outstretched hand.

“Shall we, uh. What?” She forgot how her tongue would tie itself into knots when Karolina smiled at her sometimes. 

“Head to the Kwoon.”

Nico ducks her head. “Karrie. I think you missed it but Gert and Chase aren’t drift compatible anymore. They had a demo on the floor and — it was bad.”

The hand disappears from Nico’s peripheral vision. “Damn,” she says eventually. 

“Plan’s off,” Nico adds, probably unnecessarily. 

“Nah,” she says. Nico nearly snaps her neck in surprise. “Just means we’ll take Gert and Chase’s place.”

“We — what?”

“Yeah. Unless — I mean, it was years ago, Nico, I know I didn’t handle it well but frankly if you’re still on that it’s just, it’s irresponsible!”

“If I’m on what?” Nico says blankly.

“I had a crush on you! I was a kid! We’re adults now, promise me you’re not still hung up on that. It was so long ago.”

Years and a new drift partner and keeping the coast of Siberia safe would be enough to rid anyone of a teenage crush. Nico wouldn’t know.

“I’m not,” Nico promises through a dry throat. “‘Course not.”

“Okay,” Karolina says, blinking. “Trust me?” 

There’s only one answer to that.

* * *

She only remembers once they’re on the mat in the Kwoon that Karolina’s reluctance to fight isn’t quite an act, but nor is it a shying away from the conversation. She’s waiting to see how to navigate this new situation. She's waiting for Nico. Nico brings her staff around with a yell and is gratified to see it doesn’t surprise Karolina at all. She steps back smartly, raises her staff and her eyes to meet Nico’s, smiling just a little in welcome.

It’s not quite how she remembers, when they were kids. Karolina has put on more muscle, for one thing, and fights with the kind of precision that comes from lived experience. Nico is still faster though, and she uses it to her full advantage. Karolina retaliates with her reach, keeping Nico at bay so she can’t get in too close. Her guard has to slip though, because Karolina hasn’t been drilling relentlessly for months, and Nico has. She slips in under an outstretched arm and her staff arcs out to connect with Karolina’s shins.

It’s a move that should sweep Karolina off-balance, but Nico telegraphs it too clearly, or Karolina’s not as rusty as Nico thought.

She grabs at Nico with a flailing hand and catches her at the right angle to bring her toppling down on top of Karolina.

“I still get the point,” Nico groans. “Match to me.”

“I threw it,” Karolina says, so close her words ruffle Nico’s hair.

"Bull _shit_ ," Nico says, lifting herself up in outrage to find Karolina grinning sunnily back at her.

“Still got it.” Chase’s voice is rough but there.

Nico clambers off Karolina in a flurry of limbs.

“I told you not to bother Karolina and — I can’t help but notice — she’s here.”

“Not _that_ bothered,” Karolina says.

“I specifically said not to bother Karolina. I specifically said not to.”

“Again, not super bothered, pretty happy I made the trip out. I mean I was extremely nervous the day I got in, but you know.”

“It was my idea,” Molly says, jutting her chin in the air in that brave, stubborn way she has.

“It was a mutual decision,” Gert corrects.

“And I’m not part of mutual any more?” Nico says, acidic.

“I’m not even part of this conversation and I’m right here,” Karolina mumbles.

“Karrie, we can hear you, please just let me be upset at our friends.”

A gentle touch to the back of Nico’s arm. “Sure,” Karolina says, quiet, and so fond Nico is overcome with the urge to turn around and just look at her, soak her in.

"You guys ready, then?"

Nico cracks a smile. They really might be. This really might work. "Right behind you," she promises.

Silence, and Nico remembers all over again how incredibly out of step Chase and Gert were only an hour ago.

“It’s up to you,” Chase says. "It's all up to you, now."

“But no pressure,” Gert adds, sardonic to the last. 

* * *

Getting into the Jaeger brings back a flood of memories Nico tries to breathe her way through. This isn’t the hard part. The hard part will come when she’s in the drift. She pauses just outside the cockpit and breathes for a second. This has to work. She doesn’t have a choice. This is about the world, not Nico and the crush she didn’t realize she had until it was too late. 

Karolina is already halfway into her harness when Nico steps inside and she can’t quite figure out what’s wrong until Karolina turns, smiles, hands her the other helmet. 

Nico looks down at the helmet, uncomprehending. “But this is the right hemisphere,” she says blankly. It makes the most sense for Karolina to take the right side, the dominant side, because she’s piloted a jaeger before, piloted one alone, when Solar Thrall met Hundun.

Karolina smiles. “You can handle it,” she promises quietly. “C’mon, Nico, we’ve always looked to you. I — ” she pauses, clears her throat. “I look to you.”

She shoves the helmet on her head before she can do something dumb like kiss Karolina.

“Initiating neural handshake,” a mechanical voice informs pleasantly, and Nico swallows, breathes through the wave of memories that break over her. The last time — this won’t be like the last time. This is a new day, and she’s a new Nico. 

She draws on that thought and then she’s falling, flying, spinning, her parents tucking her into bed, the first clear note she ever played on the tuba, her very best friend in middle school who traded a shiny Lapras for her crummy Scizor the day she got a C on history quiz, laughing with her parents on the red carpet even thought the lights made her dizzy, ducking away from Molly and Chase wrestling, helping Gert touch up her roots Alex, kissing Alex — Alex, she’d rejected Karolina, she’d rejected —

Nico was just Nico, Nico had shit grades in middle school, Nico slammed shut doors and wanted to open them again, Nico was a roiling mess of confusion, Nico remembers the sweet slightly bergamot scent of Nico's perfume once she'd finally gotten up the nerve to kiss this pretty girl and the girl had pulled away, revolted — 

"Don't chase it, Nico," Karolina's voice is distinct in her head and the shock of that is enough that Nico jolts out of it, adrift in the blue seas of the drift. Of course Karolina wants her not to chase it, Nico's the moron that took years to realize she's bisexual, Nico's the one with the inconveniently timed feelings for her — 

The drift is scary, it turns out. 

"Follow my voice, Nico, just keep swimming towards me, come on home, baby."

"Solar Thrall, _do you copy_ ," Molly's voice comes in clear and panicked.

Nico flips the radio on. "Copy, LOCCENT. Apologies for the delay."

"No sweat," Molly says, relieved. "Uh, I mean, uh —"

"Affirmative," Victor suggests in the background, and Nico missed them so much while she was in Siberia, those quiet years all by herself with only the ghost of her last drift partner and as far from the coast as her parents' money could get her.

Nico takes a minute to breathe, feels Karolina's transition from panicked to something more controlled — Nico jolts as she recognizes as one of the breathing exercises her band teacher taught her when she'd been struggling with a particular section in the piece they were going to play for their winter recital freshman year. 

Love, she reminds herself, is asked to power the giant mechas that dropped into the roiling sea, humanity’s last stand against the blight; and love is no docile thing.

* * *

Australia is so close they could've seen it even without the height of a Jaeger. It should be Old Lace here, Nico thinks. They'd defended Australia for a year, beating back kaiju after kaiju, together and invincible.

The kaiju rises on Nico's side, displacing a volume of water they would stagger Nico if she were anywhere but in a Jaeger, 300 feet tall and invincible, years of experience and fresh-faced excitement. She swipes down with the back of their hand, evincing a roar from the kaiju that Nico remembers. She see teeth for a brief, alarming second, teeth within a second set of jaws, but she's seen it before, several times in Siberia, and actually — Karolina's waves of reassurance turn to surprise to delight when they raise a hand and shove it into the still-stunned Kaiju's mouth and shoot lasers down its stomach, lighting it up from the inside.

“Hell _yeah,_ ” Karolina whoops, and then the kaiju has shaken it off, come up for air again, somehow on the exact opposite side, how fast can this one swim — 

The kaiju rocks them, and they flail, panicking. They can’t lose balance, that’s a death sentence in the choppy waters of the Pacific and it would leave the Hong Kong coast unprotected. Nico’s been in those shelters before, huddled between her parents, buried into her mother’s dress until all she can smell is the Chanel No 5 Mom started wearing after her first Oscar. Nico breathes, breathes, breathes again.

Their movements become jerkier, Nico can feel it, doubles down on the loss of control and nearly skids out of it, the drift rushing loud and dangerous in her mind. 

“You’re in the right hemisphere,” Karolina reminds her, “the Jaeger responds to you first because you respond first.” 

So Nico is basically fucking up singlehandedly. 

“There is no such thing,” Karolina interrupts, sharp. “You know that, you’re feeling that.” Nico looks away. She is. Karolina does something then, something that feels like warmth all down her left side and Nico gasps, has to look over at Karolina, who’s still staring out the eyes of Solar Thrall, scanning for the kaiju. “I look to you, Nico,” Karolina says softly.

The kaiju takes the opportunity to knock into them again, but this time Nico rocks with it, not so much wresting back control of the Jaeger as ceding to the push and pull of the drift, the ocean, the rise and fall and rise again —

“There’s two,” Nico gasps, the shapes resolving themselves in her mind. “LOCCENT, there are _two_ kaiju at our location.”

“Category 4,” Victor’s voice, grim.

She feels the echoing panic from Karolina. There’s never been a double event before.

“Well, we have two hands,” Nico says, shaky, for the benefit of LOCCENT. For the benefit of Molly, mostly. They’re worried about her. She hasn’t said anything since the double event was confirmed.

“One for each,” Karolina finishes. 

The sentiment doesn’t last long. She can feel it in Karolina’s head as she can feel it in her stomach — they’re being overwhelmed.

“Could be worse,” Karolina says or thinks. It’s a grim reach for optimism but Nico seizes it, puts the tone of it into the next punch she aims at the kaiju. It goes down and Nico doesn’t even have a second to hope it stays there before the second is on them, maw gaping.

Karolina fires three shots perfectly down the middle and Nico draws them up short. Something is off again, something about the landscape is changing, the ocean itself drawing back like a tidal wave is approaching, something is approaching —-

“LOCCENT to Solar Thrall — help is on the way.” Victor’s voice is carefully neutral. 

“LOCCENT, can you fucking elaborate.” Karolina shouts but Nico, rocking with the force of a well-timed swing of the first kaiju’s tail, resolves the change she’s been feeling with the sound of choppers dropping in another Jaeger.

“Solar Thrall, LOCCENT; Horizon Basilisk is reporting for duty.”

“Welcome back, rangers,” Nico says, and the force of Karolina’s joy nearly bowls them both over.

Gert and Chase still aren’t at full capacity, moving a smidgen too slow, but it’s another body and Nico gets the fierce satisfaction that the kaiju are surprised; they scatter with roars.

“Split up,” Gert yells. “Thrall, follow it to shore. Old Lace will get the rightmost fucker.” Gert’s not being cautious. Nico and Karolina hum with approval. It’s a good bet.

One kaiju is easy, once they find him. They wear it down like they have been, allowing it to dance just far enough away so that their weapons have enough momentum to drive through the kaiju and pierce it, a gaping hole in its hest. It falls and Karolina and Nico hit it again with laser fire, not standard protocol but necessary for Karolina’s peace of mind and so necessary for Nico’s.

* * *

Coming out of the drift is — Nico almost cries at the loss of Karolina but Karolina is there almost before it fully hits her. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t even think to warn you, I”m here, I’m here, I’m here,” murmured into the crook of her neck, face pressed awkwardly into the suit, the hard drivesuit ramming awkwardly into her at every wrong angle but it fades away in the face of Karolina all around her, a pale imitation of the drift but the only thing keeping Nico in her own skin.

“Hi,” Nico mumbles and hears Karolina laugh, breathless above her.

“Hi,” she replies and rests her forehead against Nico’s.

She can’t stop smiling and Nico keeps her eyes on Karolina while the J-techs rush in and help them take off their suits. As they walk along the steps to the command room, they hear the cheers for the first time, Molly and Victor whooping distinctly, getting closer as they work their way through the small crowd.

Gert and Chase are somewhere behind them, Nico knows, and falling into perfect lockstep like — Nico looks down in surprise — like her and Karolina. Their shoulders brush with every step, it’s unnatural to not be touching Karolina, she’d just shared a mind with her, she knows her, she was her, for a little. They’re perfect pieces who didn’t know they fit together.

“I knew,” Karolina murmurs.

Nico jolts, then smiles. “Shut up.” Three separate people hit Nico and Karolina in a hug as they grin at each other.

The cheering must die out at some point, because by the time Nico can wrench herself away from Karolina’s smile, a strange, empty silence has taken its place. Nico doesn’t notice until Chase lets out a sharp gasp.

In front of them, Molly stands next to Alex — Alex —

“I knew I’d find you here,” Alex says, eyes boring into Nico, “at the end of the world.”

“ _What,_ ” Nico says. 

Alex holds up a hand. “Please listen. I know we didn’t leave on the best of terms —”

“The best of terms,” Gert repeats, floored. Chase says it with her, a deeper, more scandalized echo.

“Alex has a plan,” Molly tells them quietly. Nico stares incredulously. Nico knows they haven’t had much time to pay attention to her beyond making sure she’s had three square meals, Chase usually dealt with the other stuff, and had any of them called her grandma after all? Nico knows Molly misses her family a lot more than any of them do , but Molly can always talk to them about that, Nico is always willing to listen to Molly —

“Molls, we love you so much,” Karolina says. “You know that, right?”

“This isn’t — he has a plan,” Molly says. “Just listen to him, okay?”

“I understand this is painful. Let me just cut to the quick — we need a kaiju carcass. That’s the only way we can get the bomb into the breach.”

Nico’s sure he says something after, but the haze in her head is making it difficult to listen or think and she stumbles away in the direction of her room, unseeing. 

She doesn’t realize there are footsteps behind her until she nearly bumps into the door to the official Jaeger viewing gallery. 

“This is not my room,” Nico says blankly.

Karolina ducks her head. “I — uh, I think that’s on me. I was curious about how Thrall would sit now, with us piloting and I guess — it takes a while to shake off the drift.”

Nico stares up at the Jaeger, has to tilt her neck up an absurd degree. She can’t honestly tell if she’s sitting differently, they’re too close.

“I don’t know how to be in the valleys,” Nico confesses, and Karolina’s face melts into understanding.

They fight tomorrow. Tonight, Nico pulls Karolina down to her, gives herself over to the warmth and promise of Karolina all around her. 

“You’re so wired,” Karolina mumbles against her cheek, breath hot on Nico’s ear.

“Well, tire me out,” she manages and Karolina pulls her ever closer, shivers when Nico’s nails skate down her back. It does nothing to help with the buzzing under Nico’s skin but then, Nico doesn’t want it to. Her world narrows to Karolina, Karolina’s warmth, Karolina’s eyes, half-lidded. They lean in together and Karolina waits for Nico to kiss her, like she needs to make sure it’s something Nico wants. The drift is definitely worn off then, and the thought makes her smile against Karolina’s mouth.

Life, it turns out, is best lived in the in-betweens.

**Author's Note:**

> title from dear wormwood by the oh hellos


End file.
